Corporate Social Responsibility

Student Involvement with CSR

Four groups of business and technology students, led by student and faculty mentors, will receive $500.00 each to create a corporate social responsibility project. Students will identify and contact nonprofit organizations that need assistance, link them with Minnesota businesses and generally facilitate accomplishment of the businesses' and nonprofits' social responsibility and marketing missions.

Four faculty and staff mentors and one part-time faculty mentor have volunteered: Dave Swenson, professor; Bob Hoffman, Assistant Professor; Dr. Jojo Jacob, Visiting Instructor; and Lynne Hamre, Chief Information Officer of CSS. Mentors are developing criteria for course credit, identifying student leaders, nonprofits and businesses that may want to participate and developing methods to assess the effectiveness of the initiative.

Funding for the first year of the initiative has been acquired from a donor to SBT. Donors for future years are being sought.

Student groups will report periodically on their progress and will be required to develop measures for assessing the outcomes and effectiveness of their programs. The initiative will last throughout the 2007-2008 academic year and will then be evaluated for continuation in future years.

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2008-2009

For the 2008-09 academic year, a course on Corporate Social Responsibility is being offered during the Fall Semester. Bob Hoffman, Assistant Professor in Economics, is teaching the course and can be contacted at 218-723-6715 or  rhoffman@css.edu.   The course begins mid-semester and is for 2 credits.

Park State Bank Group, 2007-08

Group Members: Allison Walz, Chloe Ott, Amanda Nadeau, Blake Meyer
Mentor: Lynne Hamre, CIO of St. Scholastica
For more information, contact awalz@css.edu.

Description: Students conducted focus groups with Park State Bank employees and are in the process of creating a recommendations paper for them.   Park State Bank website.

 

Early Financial Health Through Peer Education, 2007-08

Group Members:  Stephanie Kirchner, Eric VanderStelt, John Bradshaw, Max Jeronimous
Mentor: Bob Hoffman, Assistant Professor
For more information, contact skirchne@css.edu.

Description:  After some improvising, our group has decided to commit to the Early Financial Health through Peer Education venture. There are so many facts about finances that students (particularly high school students) don't know. We felt that high school students were those that were most vulnerable to making bad financial decisions if they did not have some financial education. If students can learn these valuable facts before turning 18 we might influence them before they even touch their first credit card. Although some parents and teachers go over important facts we felt it extremely beneficial to do peer education. Our view was that students would listen to someone similar to their age about finances before listening to an adult. Members from our CSR group will go into a Superior High School classroom on two separate days to do a "seminar" with them about personal finances. To make sure this program is sustainable, we have a verbal agreement with the professor of Personal Financial Planning to include a presentation to high school students as part of the final project for the class. Although this program is not profitable there is immeasurable gains to society and individuals for making good financial decisions.